Iggy, while most everyone in this thread claims to empathisize with you, the fact of the matter is, people have resigned themselves to the fact that this forum isn't ever going to go back to what it once was.

As Justa Picker wisely noted:

"One of the most interesting and telling new features in the upgraded version of Mudcat, are not the improved bells and whistles but rather, the conspicuoulsly absent words of "A Magazine Dedicated To Folk and Blues Music" at the top of the page."

Why is that? First and foremost, because Max decided this wouldn't be a moderated forum. Having a moderated forum is the only way to prevent the circumstances Jim Dixon describes above (with an apropos analogy) from taking over this discussion forum. Mudcat is unique in this regard. There is a core group of current members (which grows larger all the time) who use this site primarily (and for some exclusively) for social contact with their online Mudcat friends, and not as a treasured music site. Now, that wouldn't be a bad thing at all, if they could keep their socializing in the PMs, rather than dominating the forum, but they refuse to self-police themselves in this regard, to the disgust of most of those who use this site primarily for it's great music resources.

Those of us with experience online in other folk music forums know that Mudcat is unique in this regard also--self policing doesn't work here, as it does in most other folk music discussion forums. I believe the reason why self-policing doesn't work here is due to the nature of members this particular site attracts nowadays, which is people such as those described in Jim Dixon's post.

The current membership using the forum for their personal online social scene are much different types of people than were those who originally contributed the "treasures" now found in the DT and old forum threads, who have mostly left the forum. But those who left the forum did so for reasons we will never know, because they rarely have come back to tell anyone why they left. So I don't think it should be automatically assumed that it is because of off-topic BS posting, even though I'm guessing it probably is some of that, in combination with the types of people who are now the "typical" poster to Mudcat being different "folk", along with the flame wars, which will always drive some people away who refuse to put up with it.

Personally, I find the Hull threads much more tolerable than the vulgarity exhibited in the Cleigh O'Possum threads, or the adolescent male Shatner threads. As others here have noted, there once was a fairly high (for online forums) level of writing that once was the norm here in the music threads, the collaborative writing threads, and the political threads (especially the latter, when we had articulate posters who were very knowledgeable of the political wing of the folk revival). My view as an old timer who has never become a member (I go back to pre-membership days) is that quality is what initially attraced the current members, who pretty much ran the forum into the ground with a lot of potty humor and teenage level idiotic banter (like I said, Jim Dixon's analogy is dead on) that is now what we have today. The censorship level on this site has become very disturbing, particularly the way it is being used to protect members from so-called "personal attacks", and prevent Mudcat and Max from being criticized. Joe regularly deletes threads (arbitrarily and capriciously, in my opinion) where he fears either the subject matter (the request for a rap song thread that was recently deleted is a good example), or the one that the original poster of this thread also started, which Joe deleted (see his reasons for censoring that thread which he gives above).

But, as others have noted also, there are still a very few people making high quality music contributions to the site. But not very many--a handful at most. Mostly what this site has become is a chat forum for people who want an anarchic forum as a personal social playground--a place to meet online friends and do whatever they want, whenever they want, the rest of you be damned. The fact that the original purpose of this site was to provide a forum for people to discuss blues and folk music seems to be a distraction, more than an attraction to many newcomers and old timers.

What I have learned to do is use the site's music resources, contribute to them when I can, answer music questions I have an answer to (which isn't necessarily the right answer), and contribute to the BS threads I have an interest in, which isn't most of them. I don't filter either, as I value my own judgment as to what is good for me to see, rather than a filter's. But then, spam hasn't ever bothered me much, even in my email accounts. I just delete without reading. Same applies to any online discussion forum--you read what you want, ignore the rest. That is in no way unique to Mudcat.

To think that things will change for the better is pretty delusional at this point, IMO. Max has made it clear he will tolerate anything (except criticism of him, which he deletes fairly routinely) that Joe doesn't censor here. He will not invest the time and effort to moderate the forum. Now, many of us would much prefer a moderated Mudcat to what we've got. Moderation of open forums (a direction many formerly unmoderated sites have gone, in order to preserve the value of the site, and keep it out of the hands of those who would take it over to use as their own personal playground--which happens a lot online) is one very good solution to the problems you see routinely here in Mudcat, that drive so many good contributors away. But it is not to be. So now, you get what you get here.

Some silliness is cyclical, in any online forum. Most of it here isn't, and we see more and more of it all the time. Which is why many posters/lurkers come and go here, and eventually spend much more time gone than present over time. This is the great and powerful "improved" Mudcat. The techie bells and whistles make it more convenient for those of us who want to use the music resources here. But the forum? Well, I wouldn't say this it is "greatly improved" by the BS filter, would you?